NHBS Continue their Support of PWC

We are delighted to announce that Natural History Bookstore have continued their support of Patchwork Challenge into #PWC2016. They will be awarding the winner of the comparative league with a £50 Voucher and the lucky winner in 2015 was Tom Raven after his glut of rare birds including Dusky Warbler, Glossy Ibis, Cattle Egrey, Night Heron and of course the Hudsonian Godwit on the Somerset Levels.

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#patchday

You may or may not have seen us mention on Twitter and Facebook that on the weekend of Saturday 7th / Sunday 8th November some #PWC2015 activities will be taking place. Well let us explain this in more detail now! It has a double edged sword to it, a last hurrah for the autumn and a push to keep everyone enthused in PWC with the winter coming up and the new year fast approaching (yes, #PWC2016 isn’t far off!).

Some late autumn bonus points could still be waiting on your patch.....

So what does it involve? Visit your patch and do some birding and keep a list for the day, tweet about it as much as possible with the hashtags #PWC2015 and #patchday and encourage others to join in that haven’t taken part in PWC before, the more the merrier!

And just in case you need some enticement we have a wee competition for the day and a prize to be won. We mentioned earlier to keep a list for your patch on the day as the person with the highest percentage of species seen out of their overall #PWC2015 list on that day (e.g. if I was to see 65 species that day, that would be 39% of the 166 species that I have seen so far in PWC2015) will win this nice prize:

You can spend as long or little as you want on the patch for the day just make sure you Tweet about it, post about it on our PWC Facebook group page (or even send us some content for the blog), spread the PWC word, see lots of species and enjoy yourselves.......

Patches win Prizes

So the big question that remains is what are the prizes for Patchwork Challenge 2015. Here we can reveal most of them.

Firstly Bresser and Forest Optics continue to support the competition and will be renewing their sponsorship for 2015. This means they will providing a prize for the best find which at present is tbc and also sponsoring the Bubo combined species list which this year will be supporting the BTO's Long-eared Owl project with details to follow.

Over the last two years we have supported the Cuckoo tracking and House Martin Tracking projects and have enjoyed following these especially the dearly departed Patch's migration to Africa and almost back. The BTO have also got a goodie bag and a nest monitoring field guide for the winner of the Birdtrack Birdrace.

Birdguides are our second major sponsor and they continue to support the competition with regular articles and updates on their website and also Bird News Extra subscriptions for the leading Comparative, Non-comparative, Inland and Points per bird scores.

The Sound Approach are continuing to sponsor the Green Minileague - now known as The Green Minileague sponsored by The Sound Approach, We have to get these corporate names correct! The prize is as yet unannounced but rest assured it will be a goody. 

We are delighted to announce that British Birds are continuing their support of the Next Generation Birders Minileague and the winner of the Cameron Bespolka Prize receives a years subscription to the journal.

Steve Stansfield and Bardsey Bird Observatory continue to sponsor the NGB MVP for the birder Under 25 who contributes the most to the competition through a combination of dedication to the patch, interaction with the competition, good finds, usage of birdtrack and all the other intangibles that are less obvious. We will draw up a shortlist for Steve to judge on at the end of 2015.

Natural History Bookstore are continuing their support of the Comparative Score minileague which is now the NHBS Comparative Score Minileague. The winner recieves a £50 voucher and much kudos as this is the most important of the competitions in our eyes.

We are also delighted to announce our continued association with Birding Frontiers who have offered a prize or two to the competition dependent upon what goes to press. We will firm these up as the competition progresses.


Thanks to all our sponsors - without your continuing support the competition really would be lessened and we are delighted to be associated with such pillars of the birding and natural history community.